V-22 Osprey Project - Transition Flights and Crash
I took the Osprey out to my club field to start testing the transition into forward flight. It certainly got the attention of my fellow club members who were on site! The first two flights went off without a hitch. I was able to successfully transition the rotors to 45 degrees. I need to tune some additional parameters as the controls became very mushy and non-responsive. I think the rotor controls were phasing out before it had enough airspeed to make the flying surfaces functional. On my third flight disaster struck! I had been flying around just fine, but as I transitioned back to hover for landing it suddenly lost control and started pirouetting to the ground. I hit the throttle hold at tree level and it impacted the ground belly first. At the scene of the crash, I could see that the aluminum tube supporting the right rotor had pulled out of the wing enough for the rotor to flip 180 degrees to the left. I suspect that was the cause of the crash. The left wing broke the carbon...